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City in South Yorkshire, England

Sheffield

Sheffield has more trees per person than almost any city in Europe, and it gave the world stainless steel, the Full Monty and the world's oldest football club.

Key information

County
South Yorkshire
Nation
England
Population
about 556,000 (2021 Census)
Known for
Steel, cutlery, stainless steel, snooker at the Crucible, the Peak District on its doorstep
What locals are called
Sheffielders
Famous people
Joe Cocker, Jarvis Cocker, Sean Bean, Michael Palin (born in the city)
Football clubs
Sheffield United (the Blades) and Sheffield Wednesday (the Owls); Sheffield FC, the world's oldest club

About Sheffield

The city that made the world's knives and forks

Sheffield sits where five rivers meet: the Don, Sheaf, Porter, Loxley and Rivelin. That is the secret of its rise. Fast-flowing water drove the grinding wheels and hammers of a metalworking trade that was already famous in Chaucer's day. His Canterbury Tales mentions a Sheffield-made knife. By the 1700s the city was a centre of cutlery. Benjamin Huntsman perfected crucible steel here in the 1740s, producing metal of a purity nobody had managed before. Then came Sheffield plate, a way of bonding silver onto copper that put silver-looking candlesticks and teapots within reach of ordinary households. In 1913 Harry Brearley, working at a Sheffield lab, noticed that a chromium-rich steel sample had not rusted. Stainless steel was born, and every fork in the cutlery drawer owes him a nod.

Where football began, twice over

Sheffield Football Club was founded in 1857 and is recognised as the oldest football club in the world. It played by its own set of rules, the Sheffield Rules, which introduced ideas still in the game today, including corners and free kicks. In 1860 came the first inter-club match, between Sheffield FC and Hallam FC. The two still contest the Rules Derby at Sandygate, and Hallam's ground is often called the oldest football ground in the world. The professional game here is split between red-and-white Sheffield United, the Blades, and blue-and-white Sheffield Wednesday, the Owls. The Steel City derby between them is one of English football's oldest and fiercest rivalries. Even the nicknames carry the city's trade: the Blades are named for its cutlery.

Snooker, the Full Monty and a lot of music

Every spring the Crucible Theatre hosts the World Snooker Championship, and it has done so since 1977. It's a theatre with a thrust stage, which means the tension sits close to the audience. Its name is a nod to the city's steelmaking past. The 1997 film The Full Monty, about unemployed steelworkers who form a striptease act, was set and shot in Sheffield, and caught the mood of a city adjusting after the collapse of heavy industry in the 1980s. Musically, the city punches above its weight. Joe Cocker, Def Leppard, the Human League, ABC, Pulp, Arctic Monkeys and Richard Hawley all came out of Sheffield. Pulp's Jarvis Cocker wrote about the city's streets with a sharp eye, and the Human League's Don't You Want Me was a Christmas number one in 1981. The Arctic Monkeys' 2006 debut album became the fastest-selling debut in British chart history at the time.

A city with millions of trees

Sheffield calls itself the Outdoor City, and it has the figures to back it up. Roughly a third of the city lies within the Peak District National Park, and the park's edge is reachable from the city centre on a bus. Sheffield is estimated to have around 4.5 million trees, roughly eight for every resident. Climbers, fell runners and mountain bikers use the gritstone edges and moors nearby. Stanage Edge, just over the city's western boundary, is one of Britain's best-known climbing crags. Within the city, Sheffield's Winter Garden is among the largest temperate glasshouses in Britain, a lofty timber-framed space in the centre filled with plants from around the world. It stands next to the Peace Gardens, where fountains are a favourite spot for children on hot days.

Food, drink and Sheffield's own sauce

Henderson's Relish is the city's famous flavour, a dark, spiced, vinegary sauce that has been made in Sheffield since 1885. It looks like Worcestershire sauce but tastes different, and the recipe is a closely guarded secret. Exiled Sheffielders are known to carry bottles abroad. The city also has a well-known pub scene. The Kelham Island district, once a hub of steel works, now holds some of Sheffield's best-loved real ale pubs and breweries, and the Kelham Island Museum tells the story of the industry that built it. The Fat Cat there helped launch the city's craft beer revival. For something sweeter, try a Sheffield-style Yorkshire pudding wrap, a local twist that fills a giant pudding with roast dinner trimmings.

Rebuilding the Steel City

The Sheffield Blitz of December 1940 destroyed much of the city centre, and postwar rebuilding left some bold architecture. Park Hill, a vast 1960s estate of concrete decks, was built on a hillside and is now one of Europe's largest listed buildings, with much of it redeveloped. Two universities, Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam, have helped to reshape the city's economy around research, health and advanced manufacturing. Sheffield's Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, built next to the old Orgreave coking works site, works on aerospace technologies for global firms. The city remains proud of its roots. Stainless steel is still produced here, and the famous Sheffield cutlery brands carry on, though at a smaller scale than in the Victorian heyday.

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